This is my first question on here, as I’m a new member and I was hoping you guys could help me out. I have a little workshop I have put together in my two car garage and I am in desperate need of a dust collection system. I wanted to ask you guys and see if anyone had used an old air blower or leaf blower type for their dust collection system? Thank you, any advice would be very much appreciated!,

4 replies so far

Not exactly the optimum thing to do. You’ll need to heavily filter the air going into the leaf blower—these really weren’t design to suck air & dust. If you look at the some old Sears vacuums these had an option to convert into blowers. However, these also had larger canister filters inside the collection drum to protect the blower motor.

As for an old blower motor—it depends—most are high volume, low pressure. While high volume is desirable you’re looking for a specific minimum velocity. Check out Bill Pentz’s site & posts or Stumpy Nubs; he’s done an extensive series on homebuilt dust collection systems.

Myself I chose to assemble a hybrid --based upon some Pentz, Nubs & Wynn advice off the shelf parts: HF 2HP Blower, Wynn Filter, and Super Dust Deputy. Its still under construction as I’ve several other projects to clear off first. But I’ve seen a few others on YouTube with similar ideas that are working fairly well for their owners.

if my HF blower doesn’t pull enough, with this design I can either upgrade the fan (some have suggested replacing HF fan with Rikon 200 for more volume) or replace the whole blower assembly with a 3-5HP blower. I’ve a large shop area I’m upgrading, which has allowed me to keep most power tools inline (curves and bends in ducting are bad for airflow

I have used one for a temporary paint booth at jobsite. I set up a three wall enclosure of plastic and run a 6” flex hose to the back of enclosure to the outside, then I cut a slit about halfway into the tube and then inserted the blower tube into the flex blowing thru towards the outside. This created quite a draw in air and I was surprised how well it worked.

-- "Tying shoelaces was way harder than learning to Whistle",,,,,member MWTCA area K. Kentucky

What are the tools you want to hook up to a dust collector?Are you planning on moving the collector from tool to tool or will you be running a central piping system?What are your budget limits?What kind of power is available to you?

Dust collection is not an inexpensive project to undertake however with some give and takes from you it doesn’t have to break the bank.

Id get a wall mounted DC with a removable hose for you planer and jointer, just hose up to what machine you’re using, You could set up a sanding station, router table and bandsaw near each other and use a shop vac with a filter bag which you can reuse, and store the shop vac in a cabinet to reduce noise.